One of Northern Ireland’s most iconic companies has been bought by a US competitor.

HeartSine Technologies, which makes portable defibrillators, has been snapped up by Physio-Control, a healthcare technology company which also makes heart monitors.

HeartSine was founded in 1998 by Professor John Anderson who worked with the pioneer of out-of-hospital mobile coronary care Dr Frank Pantridge in Belfast in the 1960s and 1970s.

Prof Anderson was part of the team that developed the world’s first mobile coronary care unit. The company’s defibrillator has saved many lives around the world since it was launched, including footballer Fabrice Muamba who collapsed playing for Bolton against Tottenham Hotspur in 2012.

Physio-Control is a pioneer of direct current defibrillation and has partnered emergency medical systems since the 1960s and commercialised the first home-use automated emergency defibrillator in 1986.

Terms of the deal have not been released but in its latest accounts reported to Companies House, Heartsine made profits of £1.9million last year, a jump from £159,000 posted in 2013.

Welcoming the deal, HeartSine chief Declan O’Mahoney said: “This is very good for HeartSine and our distributors.

“Our teams share a strong clinical focus, and together we have exciting opportunities ahead for technical, scientific and marketing collaboration. We have a strong cultural fit and a common mission to prevent unnecessary deaths from sudden cardiac arrest.”

HeartSine employs 115 staff at its design and manufacturing facility in Belfast.

It has its roots in the Nanotechnology and Integrated Bioengineering Centre in Belfast, where its founder Prof Anderson performed research dedicated to cutting sudden cardiac deaths.

The process emergency departments use to treat out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is known as ‘The Belfast Protocol’ as the world’s first out-of-hospital defibrillator was developed in Belfast in the 1960s.

Prof Anderson filed one of the first patents for automatic recognition of ventricular fibrillation.

This algorithm, at the core of every AED in the industry today, provides technology necessary for the development of the first AEDs.